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Writers! Use the word 'iconic' when NOT talking about religious art of the Eastern Orthodox Church?

THEN STOP WRITING. NOW. AND NEVER WRITE ANYTHING AGAIN. I MEAN IT. CLOSE YOUR LAPTOP. WALK AWAY. YOU HAVE SURRENDERED THE RIGHT TO EVER USE THE WRITTEN WORD AGAIN. YOU MUST NOW COMMUNICATE PURELY THROUGH A SYSTEM OF GRUNTS AND FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND PRAY THIS WILL ENABLE YOU TO SURVIVE. YOU HAVE EXCOMMUNICATED YOURSELF FROM THE WRITING AND INDEED THE HUMAN COMMUNITY AND FURTHERMORE YOU ARE A LAZY HACKNEYED CLICHED DICKSPLASH FOR WHOM SHOOTING IN THE FACE WOULD BE TOO MILD A REBUKE. STOP WRITING. I MEAN IT. YOU ARE SCUM. YOU ARE DERMOT O'LEARY. YOU ARE CHRIS MOYLES. YOU ARE FIRST AGAINST THE WALL WHEN WE THIN THE HERD AND YOU WILL SPEND ETERNITY ROARING AND ROTTING IN THE HELL THAT SURELY AWAITS YOU. LIKE THIS DIPSHIT.

I first started noticing 'iconic's increased use in the gruesome deathspiral of non-vegetative thought that was the late 90s, together with other soub…

WE WUZ robbed. Christ, not the UK, I mean Belgium. Did you hear the gorgeous Melanie Cohl's gasping sigh of Saint Etienne-style cine-pop, 'Dis Oui' ("Come, if you are tired of your vacuous loves/Come, the world needs reconstruction/You can't stand those bombs that explode around us/You know it's enough to be two/To believe we are already stronger")? It was the only truly great pop song in this year's contest, and fulfilled that function every Eurovision needs: the lost classic, the cruelly overlooked mini-masterpiece lost to the annals of pop oblivion. Last year, it was Hungary's 'Nincs Semmi Baj', the year before, Switzerland's 'Hast Noch Viel' and, yes, I am a Eurovision fan, and I'm nearly in tears. Not just because of the heartbreaking sight of Melanie seeing the initial rush of votes peter out to a trickle (what the f*** do the Finns know about pop, anyway?), but because this was the year I got to actually go to Eurovisi…

[OK, lots to catch up with from 2016 thus far but fuck me - first WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUTSWALLOWED AND THEIR ALBUM'LUNARTERIAL' FROM 2013? I CONSIDER THIS A MAJOR DERELICTION OF DUTY FROM ALL OF YOU. FOR SHAME!Seriously, this is a twisted, evil, revolting, primordial, unholy fucking death-spiral of an album, an album so hostile to life, hostile to music, hostile to not flaying yourself inside out it almost makes me wish I was 15 again so I could walk the streets with it as my permanent soundtrack. Flamethrowers in the mind. A self-pity so extreme it immediately transcends self-loathing and jumps straight into self-immolation. Seriously, just put yourself in the way of this shit.] &lt;a href="http://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lunarterial"&gt;Lunarterial by Swallowed&lt;/a&gt; Now that small bit of metal-related housekeeping is out the way - a few things from recent months that have been caving my stoopid little skull in.

OK, a week since the vote and hey, I know the drill. Similar to those habits you kicked back into after 9-11, after 7-7. Heads down. Don't notice the people crossing the road to avoid you. Don't register any reaction to the shop assistants who drop the change with a panic'd repulsion into your foul brown palm. Keep your eyes down, no eye-contact with anyone. Get through the street to safety because the street is a place where you are a target again now, just as you were as a child. Don't ever ever relax again because that moment where your vigilance slips, when you start doubting your own paranoia, is the moment when the van draws up and three pink faces look your way grinning, when the kids see their chance to have some fun, when the guy on his bike who you hadn't thought of leans into the pavement to spit his venom, when the words will come unbidden and deafening, those words that won't just fuck up your day but will haunt your sleep, …